Challenge-XV-06

[Pangaea]

You're allowed to play with Vassals too, I suppose. And you don't have to make a permanent alliance.

Arid Inland Sea is pretty crazy. Haven't played a map like that, so not sure how it ends up, but at least you'll have a lot of floodplains. I guess you could go with tropical too if you want that familiar rainforest feel.

If one can choose between taking a vassal or a PA then it's allright. Figured PA (the tickbox option) would actively disable vassals.

Think I'd have nightmares about being stuck in a jungle for the rest of my life if I played with tropical

After playing a handful of Prince games in that G-Minor however, coming back to immortal has been a reality check in terms of maintenance after an early-ish war. May have to put off the idea about continuing the war to one more AI It was quite pleasant to easily be able to war, develop economy and grab good wonders simultaneously, but that's rather more difficult on immortal.

Some very good dates here btw, so well done guys

 

[Seraiel]

Temperate is better than arid for Space, because it has more trees. Arid is more something for Diplo or Culture.

 

[Pangaea]

Oh dear, war is going reasonably well, but other than that it looks worse for wear. Only 160 beakers at 1AD (with a very recent Buro), I don't have MC yet, no Academy (soon though), everybody but Alex and Viccy have Machinery and I'm at war with both, and Mansa has Engineering in 4 turns. 11 cities though, so that's nice, plus a captured Mids. But think it's hard to catch up once you fall behind in (tech) pace. Isn't it WastinTime that talks about "off the timeline" or something like that? Seraiel mentioned it somewhere.

Temperate is better than arid for Space, because it has more trees. Arid is more something for Diplo or Culture.

So yes, I may need to try a new game instead, especially if these settings would be better than Arid. There are FPs all over the place, and I do like those, but not enough food. Growing cities on farmed FPs is a pain.

Maybe I ought to run mapfinder for longer than 20 saved maps too. I was impatient

 

[Pangaea]

Had started to enjoy this game as we control five gold mines after warring two neighbours, but probably useless to continue the game now as there is suddenly a world war on my puny little arse. Pretty sure I could get out ahead, but it would just slow me down too much when I was in a building phase. Shouldn't have entered the faux war with Mansa, but I wanted to keep good relations with Alex as he's kind of a unit spamming nutter!

Keep getting at the city governor when in health problems. The stuff he will do.... 1 2 unimproved tile instead of a FP cottage? Sure, that's a swell idea.

Brush off and move on I guess.

 

[Pangaea]

Temperate is better than arid for Space, because it has more trees. Arid is more something for Diplo or Culture.

Why is this the case btw?

At a guess... because more trees for Space is good so you can chop out stuff, and Arid has more desert so the AI will settle fewer spots, having less pop, and therefore easier to win the votes? But then more FPs will also lead to more pop

 

[Seraiel]

You guessed right about the trees, production matters more than size in SRs.

In cultural victories hoewever, you want your L-cities to be as large as possible to work all nice Cottages. In those, having enough forests to fasten up the less buildings also is easy because of the great amount of culture, claiming very much territory.

 

[Pangaea]

You guessed right about the trees, production matters more than size in SRs.

More trees has certainly been a help in chopping out an army for early conquer - although the economy is unfortunately well down the drain in the early ADs. I wanted to get land early on to get a big base, but the extra maintenance (and not being ORG) is rough. How much warring can you really do early on here, do you have any guidelines for how many cities you can have by e.g. 1AD without tanking the economy?

Currently losing money at 0% if it wasn't for resource trades (GPT) and building Wealth in about 1/3 cities Have got Paper thanks to capture gold, but Education will take forever, and I don't have two GSs to bulb it either (may get one in about 20 turns).

319 at full tilt, but only +35/turn at 0%, which comes from GPT trades and Wealth, in 300AD. Doesn't look very competitive.

 

[Seraiel]

I believe you don't build enough Cottages ad don't let the cities grow large enough. At least, 319 BPT is not that much when you have 20+ cities. From my 880 AD domination game with hatty I know, that 360 BPT from 15 cities is np, even with a huge army of WCs because it was a Dom game. I basically built only Cottages in that game though, but that you should do too even more, because it's a Space Race!

The only situation I know when I cannot reasearch is, when I got no foreign TRs for some reason. Maybe that's the case in your game currently?

 

[Pangaea]

I believe you don't build enough Cottages ad don't let the cities grow large enough. At least, 319 BPT is not that much when you have 20+ cities. From my 880 AD domination game with hatty I know, that 360 BPT from 15 cities is np, even with a huge army of WCs because it was a Dom game. I basically built only Cottages in that game though, but that you should do too even more, because it's a Space Race!

The only situation I know when I cannot reasearch is, when I got no foreign TRs for some reason. Maybe that's the case in your game currently?

Only have 15 cities, so the low output is more due to small cities from whipping than lack of cottages (I think). Few cottages are well developed though, so that is an issue too. Needed pretty hefty whipping to knock back Hannibal's 20-unit invading stack. Then whipping out some courthouses. Then forges are available... (not many of those whipped yet).

Probably a bit of a hopeless task now, which is a shame as I've got a nice base now once it develops, but with so little research it will simply be a pain. Frustrating to put maybe 10 hours into a game, and then realise I probably need to abandon it anyway. Or just continue so I'll get a date recorded, and maybe sneaking into third or fourth. Depends how much this slow-teching will set me back until things speed up again.

PS: I've got plenty of foreign trade routes btw, last time I checked I had 0 domestic TRs.

 

[Seraiel]

I think whipping Courthouses and Forges was a mistake. To know if a Courthouse whip is worth ist, the savings must exceed the tiles that get whipped away. Slightly less to be 100% accurate, because smaller city also causes less maintenance. Forges, you should whio, when they give as many hammers, as the whipped population would have given, or, when you reach Education because of Universities.

I wouldn't give up that game btw.. Large empires recover very fast, you'll probably still have good chances at #1.

 

[Seraiel]

I btw. already gave up games in which I had invested 60h+, because Peter DoWed me with already being at war, and his stack was accidentally just at my least defended city ad had a size of 30+ units .

 

[Pangaea]

I think whipping Courthouses and Forges was a mistake. To know if a Courthouse whip is worth ist, the savings must exceed the tiles that get whipped away. Slightly less to be 100% accurate, because smaller city also causes less maintenance. Forges, you should whio, when they give as many hammers, as the whipped population would have given, or, when you reach Education because of Universities.

I wouldn't give up that game btw.. Large empires recover very fast, you'll probably still have good chances at #1.

I've admittedly not thought that much about each specific city, about what worth the whipped away tiles had, but I didn't whip courthouses willy-nilly either. I did it in cities that for example cost 12 per turn without one, so it was probably a good choice here. Forges I do tend to wish to get out fairly soon when I get access to them. Partly because I read in at least one of your Replays that they are great buildings, and something about lost hammers the later they get out. The problem in this game has mainly been the need to whip units, however. Took a bit too long to wipe out Louis, and when Hannibal backstabbed me I needed to deal with that. Took out two stacks of his, and when a third was on the way he finally wanted to talk and paid me for peace.

Will continue the game a bit further and see if I can get research up a bit, but I can forget about first. Far off Education, so I can surely forget Oxford until at least 1000AD. The capital is nice with triple gold, but food is a bit scarce, and too many (plains) hills so not great for cottaging. If I were to try again I'd probably look for more food and rivers, and less gold. An excellent Buro capital is simply too important.

Not been lucky with tech or religion either. Many are Jews and it hasn't spread to one city yet, and I've not yet been able to get either Feud or Machinery. The latter would be fine if I had GSs to burn, but I don't. But we shall see. Hopefully the empire can get in decent shape by 1000AD, and I can get a win by maybe 1800AD.